Delays at Heathrow airport: Q&A

The Government is facing growing anger over delays for passengers travelling
through London Heathrow airport caused by long queues at passport control.

Here we answer some of the key questions on the chaos passengers face at Heathrow and Britain's other ports and airports:

For how long has the problem of delays at Britain's borders been going on?

Delays markedly increased at airports and ports following the introduction of tougher border controls in 2007. Sophisticated passport scanning machinery introduced by the then new Border and Immigration Agency doubled the time it takes to process passengers arriving in the country. Since then, passengers have at times faced long queues to clear passport control, particularly during peak periods such as school holidays.

What the time-consuming checks are carried out on people entering the country?

The Home Office's Warnings Index, first introduced in 1995, is the "single most important electronic check" carried out to identify undesirable people, including suspected terrorists, criminals and paedophiles. A second check – Secure ID – is supposed to check passengers' fingerprints when they are visiting Britain with a visa. This is designed to stop people fraudulently arriving in this country by checking those arriving are the same as the person who applied for the visa.

What steps have been taken previously to reduce queues during busy times?

The UK Border Agency started checking all passengers arriving in the UK against the Warnings Index in July 2007 but as queues began to build up, officials soon decided to suspend the controls on occasions. Initially, European nationals travelling from French resorts such as Disneyland Paris and the French Alps were not checked against the index. This is thought to have led to about 500,000 people arriving in Britain who had not been checked. In June 2008, the then head of the Border Force also extended this exemption so that school coach parties travelling through Calais were also not automatically checked. Border Agency executives were given the discretion to temporarily suspend the checks for "health and safety" reasons, which often meant when queues became too long. In total, the crucial checks were suspended on 354 occasions at ports and aiports.

Secure ID checks were also abandoned hundreds of times, including on 463 occasions at Heathrow in the past two years.

Last summer, ministers secretly authorised a pilot scheme allowing immigration officials to relax checks on the "biometric" chips in European passports at airports during the busy holiday period. But on several occasions border staff went further by relaxing checks on other arrivals.

Was this not controversial?

Yes, the issue came to a head in November when Brodie Clark, then head of the UK Border Force, was suspended over the decision to relax passport checks and later resigned. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, told MPs that Mr Clark had "authorised the wider relaxation of border controls without ministerial sanction".

The Vine Report, published in February, warned the relaxation of controls led to an "unacceptable" breach in the country's defences against terrorists and criminals. Since then, the system has been considerably tightened up.

Why have delays at ports and airports become worse recently?

Following the border checks scandal, the Home Secretary ordered an overhaul of the UK Border Agency, and all passengers now face rigorous checks at passport control. However, there are also fewer staff to carry out the checks as the UK Border Agency has axed 3,500 jobs due to the Government’s austerity measures, according to union officials. This means that at busy airports, such as Heathrow which handles nearly 69 million travellers a year, passengers face long queues at busy times. BAA, the owner of Heathrow, blames the UK Border Agency for failing to provide enough staff to carry out passport checks.

The difficulties have been made worse at Heathrow lately due to technology glitches such as the failure of a fingerprint scanning machine and iris recognition equipment.

How will they cope during the Olympics?

Delays are expected to be kept to a minimum during the Olympics as the UK Border Agency is likely to reallocate staff to ensure that there are enough officials at key ports and airports. However, MPs have raised concerns that Heathrow is not ready to cope with the influx of tourists to London this summer. John Whittingdale, chairman of the Culture Select Committee, wrote to Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, warning that budget cuts to the immigration service meant that passport control desks might be left unmanned, leading to long waits for passengers.